Oh no! For a minute there, Silent Witness fans, life looked peachy. Last time we tuned in, Nikki Alexander and Jack Hodgson, TV’s most meant-for-each-other couple, were finally getting their happy-ever-after. And off-screen the adorable Emilia Fox, who’s played Nikki for 20 years, had found her someone special too.
To recap, season 28 saw pathologist Nikki and her forensic scientist counterpart Jack (David Caves) newly married and dancing in Trafalgar Square. It was teased on Instagram by Emilia in a white hazmat suit and a mini veil, but when it came to the actual wedding Nikki had flowers in her hair, a white dress shimmering with glass beads and some pertinent lines about the mysteries of the human heart.
Meanwhile Emilia, 51, who’s had a fair bit of turbulence in her private life, was blissfully happy with handsome TV producer Jonathan Stadlen. It had been a whirlwind love affair, ‘life-changing’ she said after they first got together in 2021. ‘You can never say for definite, but I feel so hopeful.’ He proposed to her every day just for fun and she always said yes.
But now, just as Nikki settles into wedded bliss, Emilia’s own relationship is over, she reveals. She’s been single for a year, spending 2025 coming to terms with her secret split from Jonathan. It’s a plot twist worthy of, well, a top-rated TV drama.
‘It’s been a year of change,’ the mother of one admits. ‘At the beginning of 2025 we separated. It’s really sad when relationships finish, and particularly one for which we both had lots of hope. The end of a relationship, no matter why it happens, or even if it happens in the best way… well, you’ve thought your life was going to be one thing, and then it’s something else. How you cope is about the attitude you take.
‘You can see life’s dents as harmful, or choose to think they make us who we are. So my attitude is that I take all the good things that happened – I have nothing but lovely things to say about Jonathan, and I feel lucky to have been on that path with him – and accept it’s time to look to a different future.’
Emilia Fox with TV producer Jonathan Stadlen. They had a ‘life-changing’ whirlwind relationship after meeting in 2021, she says… but reveals she has been single for a year
Her happiness had been mirrored on screen, where her Silent Witness character Nikki marry her forensic scientist counterpart Jack (played by David Caves)
It sounds as if it’s been pretty traumatic. ‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘I’m OK. In fact, I’m better than OK. I feel good. I think with relationships, the older you get the more experiences you have, the more you appreciate things, and I appreciate what we had together. The ending doesn’t take away from how lovely it was. Since we parted, I’ve put into practice all the things I know make me feel better, and that’s helped me reach a more positive place.’
Why did they break up? ‘The why is a harder one,’ is all she’ll say, keen to respect her former partner’s privacy. Was it mutual? ‘Er, yeah.’ She doesn’t sound entirely convincing, but she’s not offering any clues as to which one of them broke it off.
So, how has she helped herself? She brightens, back on firmer territory, and runs through a long list: time, friends, her mum and dad (she’s a member of the Fox acting dynasty, the daughter of actors Edward Fox and Joanna David), talking, a change of scene, work, nature, and finding something to laugh about.
‘I’ve had a year and time does its work, it does its healing. When you say that to a teenager, they don’t understand. Even in your 20s it’s hard to believe, but in my 50s I know time has the power to make me feel better.
‘Rose [her 15-year-old daughter, doing her GCSEs this summer] and I have had great girly times together. We went to Majorca, and to Ibiza in the springtime, when it’s really quiet and there’s such an abundance of wild flowers.’ A classic change of scene? ‘Yes,’ Emilia smiles.
‘Then I’ve got amazing friends, thank God. The best. And, of course, my family, Mum and Dad. Plus I was lucky because I was working and you don’t talk about relationships at work. So I focused on Silent Witness and on being enveloped in the warmth of Signora Volpe, that was really helpful too.’
Signora Volpe is Emilia’s other crime-busting show in which Sylvia Fox, a British spy retired to Italy, turns detective among the olive groves and medieval streets of Panicale, Umbria. The cosy escapism that makes it an inter-generational treat sounds as though it has been a balm for Emilia’s heart too.
Emilia Fox at last year’s Bafta awards ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall… her chic bob hairstyle caught the eye
Emilia says of her break-up with Jonathan Stadlen: ‘With relationships, the older you get the more experiences you have, the more you appreciate things, and I appreciate what we had together’
Dr Nikki Alexander and Jack Hodgson in some of the first images released this week of the new season of the drama, which starts next month
‘Talking, without a doubt, makes you feel good,’ she goes on. She learned that from her years in therapy and has had it underscored by her friendship with TV criminologist and Birmingham City University emeritus professor David Wilson. Emilia makes the true-crime series In The Footsteps Of Killers for Channel 4 with him and they were recording an episode of their podcast, If It Bleeds It Leads, when she first met Jonathan, who’d come to research a new project of his own.
‘David always says the three things guaranteed to make you feel better are talking, being in nature and laughing. That stuck with me, the need to find someone to laugh with, or to go and see something that makes you laugh. It’s simple, but a good thing to hold on to.’
Is she currently single? ‘I am, yes.’ But not swearing off men forever? ‘No, no, I would never do that, I wouldn’t be that extreme. But I have really appreciated having time to myself, to collect myself, and be on my own. It’s been good for me. The last year has been a healing time.’
Emilia’s love life has been part of the gossip economy since she was an emerging star at the turn of the century. In 2000 she was engaged to comedian Vic Reeves, whom she met filming Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). In 2005 she married Hollywood A-lister Jared Harris, son of Richard Harris, divorcing after five years. She then turned to international peace campaigner Jeremy Gilley, from whom she parted in 2011. He is Rose’s father and there have been other relationships, including one with celebrity chef Marco Pierre White.
Stadlen, however, seemed to be ‘The One’ set to give Emilia the kind of long-term domestic stability Silent Witness has brought to her working life. As for Nikki and Jack, well, season 24 of the show (2021) ended with their first smooch and season 25 (2022) opened with them heading into a Liverpool hotel room together. By season 26 (2023) they were officially a couple, and their engagement was the finale of season 27 (2024) when Jack, truly on brand, produced a ring box from inside an evidence bag. Their wedding, broadcast in February 2025, was the climax to the last season, causing a fan frenzy and ushering in a new era for the venerable show.
Silent Witness, now 30 years old, is the world’s longest-running crime drama with all 28 series available on BBC iPlayer and a list of guest stars that reads like acting royalty: Emily Mortimer, Idris Elba, Nicholas Hoult, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jodie Comer, Jim Carter, Martin Compston, Eddie Marsan, Tamsin Egerton, Jason Watkins, John Hannah and Daniel Kaluuya.
It’s been unafraid of innovation since its earliest days when Amanda Burton played Nikki’s predecessor, the formidable pathologist Sam Ryan. As well as Nikki, who took over from Sam in 2004, and Jack now returning as husband and wife, series 29 shifts the action from the Lyell Centre in London to the newly opened Sir William Bowman Centre of Excellence in Birmingham.
Some things haven’t changed, of course. There’s still a murder to solve and a post mortem to conduct and a storyline that captures the zeitgeist. This season will examine the polarising impact of social media, the rise of AI and the digital distortion of our reality.
‘There’s a lot to look forward to,’ promises Emilia. ‘I like the idea of two scientists, who only deal in facts, learning about love and emotional chemistry. David Caves and I have a very, very emotional storyline together.’
Beyond the juggernaut of Silent Witness – she’s already filming for next year – Emilia has a third series of Signora Volpe heading to air and, since she’s always loved mysteries and puzzles and has made her career in ‘crime’, surely she’s a shoo-in for The Celebrity Traitors?
‘Even thinking about that question has made my heart rate rise,’ she squawks. ‘I don’t think I could handle the pressure of not telling the truth. Even as a child I didn’t like sardines, or wink murder. Plus I laugh when I’m nervous, I have a terrible poker face.’
That said, she might like to play a killer in a drama one day. ‘The complications of a different kind of mind at work, so unlike my own, that would exciting,’ she says, and she wouldn’t mind doing a bit of comedy either. An action role? ‘Oooh, I don’t know they’d want me,’ she laughs.
Does she ever wake up in the night and wonder if Nikki might one day be the corpse on the Silent Witness mortuary slab? ‘It’s quite possible,’ Emilia says wryly, ‘but I’d only find out when I read the script!’
Silent Witness returns on Monday, February 2, 9pm, BBC1 and iPlayer.